Morning Tea: Kim Jong-Il’s son in Macau, Dell and Chinese Exceptionalism, Rebecca MacKinnon on thinking globally

If your father was the secretive dictator of a pariah state, where would you go? Well, first you might try Disneyland and if that doesn’t work….why not hang with your buddies in Macau? Tim Johnson at China Rises has a great account of Kim Jong-il’s son Kim Jong-nam as the latter parties it up in the Asian gambling mecca. Apparently the 35-year old Jong-nam is on the outs with the family Kim back in Pyongyang and has also had a little recent financial trouble with some Hong Kong banks. Seoul newspapers report that now Kim Jong-nam has “hooked up with Chinese ”princelings,’ or offspring of Communist Party bigwigs, namely former President Jiang Zemin, in business deals. The group is colloquially called Taizidang, or the ‘princeling’s clique.’” Now that’s a KTV party, pass the cognac and kimchi.

Silicon Hutong blogs about Kevin Rollins’ problems at Dell and argues that Dell’s problems started when their “business model” of ever increasingly efficient supply chains failed in the China market. Silicon Hutong says that right there, Dell should have known it was in trouble but nobody saw it (or saw the possible lessons to be learned) because “everybody knew that China was different.” This is not just an issue in business. For a long time, the field of Chinese history isolated itself because of a misguided belief in “Chinese Exceptionalism”: The idea that what happens in China only applies to China because somehow China is exceptional and the lessons learned there are too unique to China to have value in the study of other histories. Similarly, historical theories derived from research in other parts of the world, “simply wouldn’t apply” to the Chinese case for the same reason. Certainly any theory (or business plan) based on research in one area cannot be arbitrarily applied to another. But China is not a magically unique and exotic realm and the lessons learned from Chinese history (or business) can have valuable application when looking at other parts of the world and vice-versa.

Along the same lines, Rebecca MacKinnon, writing about the media, cautions us to not think of certain people/events/issues as “foreign” but rather as “global” or “international.” MacKinnon writes, “The word “foreign” denotes things that are happening in some disconnected and remote place that has little to do with our own lives.” Her piece reminds me that in the field of history we often throw around terms like “foreigner” or “foreign” without always giving due consideration to the loaded meanings of these terms. This is especially true in history texts written by Chinese scholars who even today still write with a post-Tupac ‘me against the world’ attitude. While MacKinnon doesn’t like the term “foreign” because it seems somehow outdated and a poor fit for today’s world, I wonder if even when discussing history, these terms “foreign” and “foreigner” conjure connotations that skew our view of historical sources. What if we changed our thinking on this issue? For example could we say, the problems of China in the 19th century were due to the challenges of global or international colonialism? (One thing that switch of terminology does is perhaps remind us that the Qing too was an empire engaged in its own projects of colonization.) Just something to consider on a Friday morning.

Tags: Chinese History · morning tea

1 Kevin S. // Feb 2, 2007 at 3:55 am

As you’ve said, Chinese scholars certainly believe in “Chinese Exceptionalism.” Zhang Jiehai, a psychology professor in Shanghai writes:

“Here, I wish to solemnly tell everybody — for any research done by a foreigner on China, you can put up a question mark first. Especially, those foreigners who come to make some short trips in several major cities in China and are greeted and shown around by Chinese people. You might as well as not listen to what they say. That is not because they are stupid, but because the situation of our nation is too special.”

Moreover, in my experience, the idea that China is “too special” for foreigners to understand is shared by nearly every Chinese person I have come in contact with.

Thanks for putting a name to this for me, “Chinese Exceptionalism.”
2 花崗齋之愚公 // Feb 2, 2007 at 4:50 am

Kevin, Thanks for stopping by. Yeah, this guy is a piece of work. I remember his Freudian ranting over the SiS blog. Sadly, it’s not only wingnuts like Zhang who feel this way, but serious academics as well.

Jottings from the Granite Studio